The Dragonslayer Series: Books 1-4: The Dragonslayer Series Box Set

by Resa Nelson

  Pulling the dagger out of the dead lizard’s neck, Astrid slid off its back and saw Taddeo. Bracing one foot against the lizard’s jaw, Astrid rolled up her sleeves, took a firm grip on her sword’s hilt, and began to work it loose. “How long have you been standing there?” she said. “I could have used your help.”

  When DiStephan went missing, Guell and the other villages in the region hired Taddeo, a stranger from the Far East, to replace him. He appeared to be a light-skinned man, strong and tall, with cool green eyes. But Astrid knew him to be a dragon. Not a lizard like the ones she hunted and killed, but a true dragon with the power to take any shape he chose.

  “Are you quite well?” Taddeo said. He stood at ease with his hands behind his back.

  The last time they’d had a conversation like this, his thoughts had changed the shape of her body, startling her so much that she’d found herself unable to change it back for days. But that had happened before she’d become a dragonslayer. She felt different now. Solid. “I’m fine, Taddeo. Why do you ask?”

  He stared, but Astrid assumed he’d never seen her dressed in her dragonslayer clothes. As a blacksmith, she’d worn trousers and a leather vest. Now, she wore pants and a tunic made of patchwork cloth: stitched-together scraps of linen dyed brown and green that helped her blend in with the woods. “I ask,” Taddeo said, “because you appear to be coming apart at the seams.”

  Astrid laughed, now wriggling the sword to loosen it from the lizard’s mouth. “That’s ridiculous.”

  He walked toward her, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her hand free from the sword. Before she could protest, he extended her arm and twisted it slightly. “Then what kind of explanation do you offer for this?” Taddeo said.

  Three scars crawled like worms across the back of her forearm. Astrid yanked her wrist free from Taddeo’s hold.

  In childhood, she’d been chewed up and spit out by a dragon, leaving her body covered in hideous scars. After reaching adulthood, she’d shapeshifted her body, hiding her scars by smoothing out her skin. But when she’d decided to become a dragonslayer, her scars had resurfaced to form the image of a sword down her spine and chest, like identical tattoos bisecting each side of her body.

  Astrid stared at her arm. She closed her eyes and imagined her skin clear and smooth again. The wayward scars halted as if confused before reversing direction and crawling back up her arm toward her chest and spine where they belonged. She rolled her sleeves back down to cover her skin.

  “How long has this happened?”

  Astrid returned her attention to the sword still stuck inside the lizard’s throat. “It’s nothing.”

  “I see.”

  “Why are you here, Taddeo? What do you want from me now?” Although Astrid looked at her sword, she checked from the corner of her eye for Taddeo’s reaction, but he showed none.

  “Along the dragonslayer’s winter route, there is a place with a Dragon’s Well. Drink from the water in that well, and it will restore your arm.”

  Astrid stiffened. Anyone who ate lizard meat or drank lizard’s blood perceived her skin to be flawless and her physique normal. In truth, scars covered her skin. One arm was real, and the other a ghost arm that existed only by the power of her belief in it. Taddeo had come into her life and manipulated her in an effort to free his niece Norah from captivity on Tower Island, home to the Scaldings. Months ago, he had succeeded in freeing Norah, who had devoured Astrid’s arm to stay alive.

  “Drinking the water from the Dragon’s Well also has the power to seal your scars in place,” Taddeo continued. “DiStephan can lead you there—he drank from the well himself when he filled his father’s shoes. You are likely to travel through regions where people cannot see you as you wish, and this restoration will eliminate those problems. It is well advised to disguise your phantom arm on the way to Dragon’s Well, but—”

  “I’m not going on the winter route.” With a loud grunt, Astrid pulled her sword free from the lizard she’d killed. “I’m staying in Guell. I’ll be working at my anvil until spring. Then I’ll hunt lizards again.”

  Taddeo took a patient tone and began to lecture. “Every dragonslayer follows lizards as they migrate.”

  “I’ve followed them out of the Far Northlands and soon out of Guell.” Astrid licked the blood gingerly from her blade, grateful for the immediate warmth that coursed through her body. “I protect the people who pay me. Let the foreigners protect themselves.”

  Taddeo frowned. “You would willingly let harm come to others?”

  Astrid continued licking her sword clean, her lips dark with blood. “You mean foreigners who would think nothing of invading Guell if we weren’t protected by Dragon’s Head?” She nodded toward the rocky outcrop by the sea, visible from here, a favorite breeding ground for lizards. “Foreigners who would raid our village and steal our goods?”

  “DiStephan followed the winter route.”

  Hearing his name spoken aloud by someone else stung. Astrid had grown used to the solitude nature of dragonslaying. She thought nothing of spending most of her time walking through the woods and talking to the ghost of her sweetheart. But hearing his name out loud from Taddeo’s lips came as a harsh reminder of DiStephan’s death. “DiStephan and his father came from the Southlands,” Astrid said. “He followed the winter route. He went back to his first home where his own people welcomed him. I’m from the Northlands. My people are here.”

  “But DiStephan—”

  “I’m not DiStephan.”

  “I see,” Taddeo said again. This time, his voice weighed heavy with disappointment.

  Astrid licked the last drop of blood from the sword. Removing her gloves and tucking them under her real arm, she pulled out a small square of cloth from the leather pouch attached to her belt and wiped the blade carefully before sheathing it. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to help me get this lizard to Guell.”

  “Put your gloves back on,” Taddeo said. “And remember the danger of a lizard’s bite, even when it’s first hatched.” He gazed beyond her toward her dragonslayer’s camp.

  She followed his gaze toward the small ring of stones encircling the cinders of a fire she’d made weeks ago. Apparently, something had dug into the sand, scattering hardened chunks of it around a pile of shells. But that didn’t make any sense. Astrid had often watched gulls soar and drop clams on the hard rocks below until the shells broke open. But gulls used the rocks lining the sea’s edge, not the beach itself. Clams dropped onto sand would never break open.

  Something moved within the sand. Astrid walked toward it slowly, keeping one hand on the hilt of the dagger tucked under her belt. Something had dug into the sand, leaving a pile of round stones.

  When she walked closer, Astrid saw that most of them had broken apart. Only three out of 20 were still intact, and those stones trembled, even though the ground beneath them did not. Suddenly, a small dark snout broke through the surface from inside the stone.

  No. It’s impossible. How could this happen in a dragonslayer’s camp?

  Turning, Astrid said, “Taddeo…”

  But he’d already vanished, leaving her alone.

  Astrid sighed. She knew she couldn’t count on him to help her take the lizard’s carcass into Guell. At least he’d left her with good advice. Astrid put her gloves back on and walked toward the pile of lizard eggs.

  CHAPTER 4

  Astrid knelt by the lizard eggs, each one double the size of a chicken’s egg. The eggshells’ brown and gray exterior would make them blend in with the color of the forest floor. The three unhatched eggs bore cracks, and a filmy membrane seemed to breathe of its own accord between each crack.

  What were hatching eggs doing inside a dragonslayer’s camp, especially this late in autumn? Lizards left the Northlands every fall, seeking the warmth of the southern countries but not before mating and laying a clutch of eggs, usually hidden in caves. The eggs usually hatched in the spring, although some had been discovered hatching in summer.
For these eggs to be hatching now, they would have had to be laid last winter. It made no sense for a lizard to remain in the Northlands during winter and even less that no one would have discovered its presence. Last winter, DiStephan was still alive and had been roaming the Southlands, keeping people safe from lizard attacks.

  The infant lizard poked the rest of its head through the eggshell, wriggling until it freed its body. Unlike adult lizards, the newborn’s skin had narrow horizontal black stripes dotted with ivory. But while trying to break entirely loose of the shell, its tail remained trapped inside. The creature looked back at the egg, befuddled. It reminded Astrid of the temperamental brown smoke breathed out by a fire in the making.

  Her dragonslayer duties included destroying these eggs, but it didn’t feel right.

  Watching the newborn’s bewilderment at the problem of freeing its tail from the egg, Astrid murmured, “I would call you Smoke.”

  The cold sea breeze lightly slapped her face. In it, she recognized the shape of DiStephan’s hand.

  Astrid knew DiStephan wouldn’t understand. The last time she’d seen him alive, he’d detected the scent of lizard in the air and discovered a hatchling. Horrified, she’d seen him beat it into a bloody pulp. That had made her wonder what he might do to her if she angered him. It had been a stupid, baseless fear she now regretted. Now that she had become a dragonslayer, Astrid understood DiStephan had lived true to the duties he’d agreed to accept.

  “I know,” Astrid said to DiStephan’s ghost. “I understand what I’m supposed to do. A lizard is a lizard, no matter its size. But I’m not you.”

  The breeze died down in compliance.

  What about the lizard she had just killed? Astrid turned around to verify its death. It lay sprawled where she had left its body, still and lifeless. Was it the mother? Had it been a mother protecting its young? Astrid took care not to react in front of DiStephan’s ghost, because she knew he’d be disappointed in her for thinking such things. DiStephan believed a dragonslayer’s duty included killing all lizards, but Astrid had yet to come to grips with that mindset.

  The newborn lizard struggled mightily against the eggshell holding its tail inside, wriggling in one direction after another.

  Withdrawing her dagger from her belt, Astrid held the weapon in her left spirit hand, ready to protect herself if Smoke succeeded in freeing itself. After all, a lizard’s bite was deadly. Even a nip from a newborn could be fatal. Using her spirit hand would keep her safe.

  Inching closer to the pile of eggs, she studied the nest. The claw marks of an adult surrounded the eggs. With the blade of her dagger, Astrid explored the empty eggs that had already hatched. Most of them were crushed and bloody, unlike Smoke’s egg, which had one small opening the newborn had poked open with his nose. Astrid examined the sand surrounding the hatched eggs. The newly hatched lizards would have left tiny claw marks, and their tails would have left sweeping, telltale marks if they left the nest in search of food.

  But the only marks in the sand were the huge, deep claw marks of the adult she’d killed.

  “It was feeding,” Astrid said aloud, examining the other crushed eggshells. “This lizard wasn’t the mother. It must have seen the sand moving once the eggs started to hatch and dug up the nest.” Astrid knew adult lizards perceived young ones as food. Therefore, young lizards spent the first few years of life in trees, where the adults couldn’t reach them. “It had already eaten most of the eggs by the time I arrived. I came back to camp, and I found the lizard eating them. Maybe it felt threatened by me. It wasn’t protecting its young. It was protecting its supper.”

  With one final tug, Smoke freed himself from the egg. He circled it, collapsed with exhaustion, and curled up, holding the eggshell close.

  I saved them, Astrid thought, seeing the next egg tremble, ready to hatch. They’re alive because of me.

  A new thought occurred to her. Rising to her feet, Astrid called out, “Taddeo! Are these dragons? Or are they lizards?”

  The sea breeze kicked up again, swirling around her.

  Astrid faced the emptiness surrounding her. “They placed me in a cage with a young dragon when I was a girl. In all that time, I only saw her as a dragon, not in any other form. Children can’t control their shape until they grow up—what if the same is true for dragons? I know Norah hatched from an egg. What if she couldn’t take any form other than a dragon as a child? What if these are dragons?”

  The sea breeze swirled harder and faster around her. Clearly, DiStephan believed they were lizards.

  “Stop!” Astrid shouted. “I know what you want me to do. I know what I have to do. Dragonslayers don’t take chances, not when it comes to protecting people.”

  Satisfied, the sea breeze died.

  CHAPTER 5

  After hiding the lizard’s nest and its hatchlings, Astrid noticed rustling sounds outside her camp. She withdrew her sword then took a few steps toward the edge of the forest, squinting while she tried to read the sounds.

  Until earlier this year, Astrid’s world had been one of smoke and fire and smiting iron. Since first arriving in Guell in childhood, she’d spent most of her time in the smithery, finding comfort and safety in its blazing heat. She’d spent years learning to read fire, coming to understand how to start it and the meaning of smoke when it turned white or brown or black. She’d studied the nuances of flame and letting its colors talk to her. Most of all, she’d become fluent in the language of iron, sensitive to every shade it could take at the forge, from cold black to warm orange to hot cherry red to burning yellow sparked with white.

  The intimate world of the smithery made her feel at home. Even though she’d spent the past several months befriending the forest, she still felt like a lost stranger.

  As the noise in the woods grew louder, Astrid tilted her head, trying to angle her ears to pick up the sound better. Lizards spent much of their time laying low, waiting for prey. They tended to make quick, sharp sounds of attack. But lizards also searched for carrion, in which case they’d move slowly, dragging the back of each foot before plopping it against the ground as their tails swept behind.

  Concentrating, Astrid heard no sounds of attack or dragged paws or tails. Instead, she detected the crunch of brittle leaves underfoot and the snap of fallen twigs.

  Men made those sounds as they traveled in the woods. And these men were bound to walk into her camp very soon.

  I should have heard them much sooner, Astrid realized, angry with herself. She could forgive herself for not paying attention to the sounds of the forest because her focus had been on fighting the lizard. Any time she faced a dangerous animal, the key was to focus entirely on the fight.

  But she shouldn’t have let herself be distracted by the nest of eggs.

  Astrid now realized she’d let her guard down and, even worse, let her senses down. The outside world wasn’t safe like her smithery. Here, she had to constantly watch and listen and smell and taste and touch.

  A new sea breeze blustered at her back, nudging her forward and lifting her thick ribbons of hair into the air. Looking up, Astrid took note of the dark clouds that had formed, standing in the sky like a fortress of boulders.

  She glanced around her camp, thinking ahead in case she needed to fight the men who would arrive within moments. She had the sea behind her. The slain lizard lay directly to her left. Her sleeping shelter, a simple lean-to of branches with a thatched roof, was situated behind on her right.

  For the first time in months, Astrid became painfully aware that with the help of DiStephan’s ghost, she’d learned to slay dragons but she knew little about wielding weapons against men. Her past luck in fighting brigands, slave owners, and her own brother came from the help she’d received from DiStephan’s ghost and the dragons, Taddeo and Norah.

  If the men approaching her camp were reasonable, she would have no qualms about offering part of the slain lizard to them, even though it represented enough meat for Guell to survive the winter in comfort
.

  But if they were brigands, Astrid might have to run, leaving her bounty behind.

  The sea wind behind her kicked up again, this time swirling around her. The ribbons of her hair lifted and wrapped around Astrid’s face, blinding her when the men stepped out of the forest and into her camp.

  CHAPTER 6

  Astrid clawed at her face with her phantom hand. She pushed her hair away from her eyes while still clinging to her dagger with her real hand, ready to protect herself from the men invading her camp.

  “No troubles,” a familiar voice said. “It’s all friends here—no dragons.”

  Holding her hair back from her face, Astrid smiled, tucking her dagger back under her belt, relieved and warmed by the sight of friends.

  Randim stepped out of a cart led by two of the strongest farm horses from Guell. Soot surrounded his thick eyebrows and large blue eyes, a sure sign that he’d been at the forge all day. His long dark hair pulled away from his square and serious face. Instead of a simple tieback, the hair had been braided for a finger length at the nape of his neck and then hung freely, clearly Lenore’s handiwork.

  One of the horses snorted and stomped in protest, and Randim patted its neck in reassurance. He grinned at the sight of the slain lizard. “The ghostie was right. That dragon will make enough meat to last until spring.”

  Like everyone other than Astrid, Randim believed the animal to be a dragon, even though Astrid had adopted Taddeo’s habit of calling them lizards. No one other than Astrid knew that Taddeo and Norah were true dragons or that dragons and lizards were different creatures, even though they sometimes looked the same.

  “DiStephan?” Astrid wasn’t surprised that Randim had seen him. Even now, she noticed the slight bulge in the blacksmith’s cheek. Because he’d adopted the habit of chewing Night’s Bane as a child, he’d slowly grown accustomed to it. Although the herb made it possible for the living to see the dead, any adult who chewed more than a handful of it would be poisoned. Astrid had already consumed her share of Night’s Bane and could never chew it again without risk to her life. Because Randim had developed a resistance to the herb, he served as DiStephan’s most direct contact with the living, often much to Randim’s distaste.